Restaurant district managers have a dynamic and complex role in the foodservice industry. Not only are they responsible for ensuring public safety and customer satisfaction, but they must also keep track of financial data, manage human capital, and even follow wider industry trends and consumer preferences to contribute to the strategy of the brand they work for.

In addition to all of this, they must manage and engage a team of managers in their region and ensure that compliance reporting at each restaurant is done consistently. Traditional logbooks don’t provide district managers enough transparency or control in this process. But digital logbooks hold each manager accountable.

Here are five specific ways digital reporting can help restaurant district managers:

1. Food Safety

Restaurant district managers have a responsibility to ensure their employees are following food safety procedures to keep the public and their patrons safe.

As we noted earlier this month, one in six Americans experiences food-borne illness each year, and about 50 percent of those cases stem from restaurants or delis. It can be very difficult to keep track of food safety policy adherence using manual reporting processes. However, a digital reporting tool like Squadle HQ can streamline your efforts and help ensure that your employees are clear on their duties and that they are being executed regularly and effectively at your restaurants. This is the best way to ensure thorough restaurant compliance reporting and help managers get back to focusing on the customer experience, rather than worrying about potentially harmful repercussions.

2. Business Intelligence

Another area where digital reporting can make a dramatic difference is business intelligence. Monitoring everything from your finances to inventory to employee schedules can reveal insights into your restaurants’ operations that can help district managers make decisions that improve the efficiency and increase margins for their businesses. Manually keeping track of these various metrics can be a real headache, but a digital reporting solution can save time while helping you pick out key trends and patterns and either optimizing or correcting, practically in real time. Business intelligence is the best way for restaurants to stay competitive over the long run.

3. Productivity

More generally, a digital reporting tool can help you increase productivity and save time as a restaurant district manager. Since many food service managers work more than 50 hours a week, and district managers often many more, it’s important to identify tasks that can be simplified using productivity tools.

Digital reporting can save loads of time by allowing managers to capture data while on the go rather than having to manually track and then translate the information to a digital format for reporting. Additionally, a digital reporting tool can help identify tasks that would benefit from more efficiency.

For example, if a digital reporting solution were to help you figure out that staff members are spending too much time cleaning up in the morning after a night of service rather than cleaning up as they go, you could adjust their task schedules to build a more efficient (and compliant) workflow.

4. Human Resources Management

Similarly, digital reporting tools can help you more effectively manage staff. One way they can do this is by streamlining the scheduling process. Rather than recording a performance issue in a traditional logbook, where it’ll never be dealt with, a digital reporting solution lets managers record and handle these issues “on the fly”, so to speak. Rather than district managers having to wonder “what’s going on?” at their stores, they have knowledge of when these situations crop up and confidence knowing they are being handled.

5. Track Finances

One of the most important jobs of a restaurant district manager is to oversee the finances of all outlets they manage. This can be an overwhelming role, when you take into account all of the expenses on items such as food, cleaning supplies, cooking tools, employee pay and more, balanced with the money that comes in via your customers. However, knowing exactly how much you are spending and where the money flows is the only way to make sure your restaurants are healthy from a business standpoint.

A digital reporting system can help keep track of hidden wallet crushers - like temperature, lights, and their utilities costs. It’s not only more reliable but also faster and easier to keep track of money when you use a digital tool.

Digital reporting tools, as you can see, have many uses and can be an ideal way for district managers to harness technology and put it to work making their restaurants safer, more efficient and more profitable. There are many areas where digital reporting can have a positive impact, but these five are some of the most important.

Are you using digital reporting tools today? How? Tweet us at @GetSquadle and let us know what you think.